CHAPTER II

THE MOCKING-BIRD

Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of nature's school; To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch-mocker, and Mad Abbot of Misrule. For such thou art by day; but all night long Thou pour'st soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song Like to the melancholy Jaques complain, Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong. And sighing for thy motley coat again.

Wilde.

In his native town, or district, the mocker stands at the head of the class as a song-bird. He is not distinguished for his gorgeous plumage, like a parrot, nor yet for the mischief he does, like the crow. His virtue is all in his throat. And yet he can scarcely be honored as an original genius. Were he original he would be no mocker. But he has an original way with him for all that, when he takes a notion to mimic any person. Were he a man as gifted, we should have no trouble in seeing ourselves "as ithers see us"; or better, in hearing ourselves "as ithers hear us." He is the preacher, the choir leader, the choir itself, the organ. He gives out the hymns, chants the "Amen," and pronounces the benediction in the garden church. Few verses have been inscribed to the mocking-bird, for the reason, it is supposed, that sentiment intended for any known singer fits the mocker, though it must be conceded that he is humorist more than poet. It is impossible to listen to his varied songs and keep from laughing, especially if the mood be on one. Where the weather is very mild he sings all winter, and nearly all the year. His fall molt takes but a few weeks, and then "Richard is himself again."

His humor does not desert him even at the trying season of molting his coat, for he is seen to stand on a bough and preen himself of his old tatters, catching a falling feather in his beak, and turning it about in a ludicrous way, as if laughing to himself at this annual joke of his. Dropping the remnant of his summer plumage, he cants his wise little head and gives a shrill cry of applause as it floats away.

Whatever may be said of his musical powers, the mocker exceeds his fellows in the art of listening. We have known him to sit the better part of an afternoon, concealed in thick foliage, listening with all his might to the various songs about him, with full intention of repeating them at midnight. And repeat them he does, not forgetting the postman's whistle, nor the young turkeys just learning to run (in the wet grass) to an untimely grave.

He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best.

We imagine that he forgets, from year to year, and must have his memory stirred occasionally. This is particularly so in his imitation of the notes of young birds. We never hear them early in spring or very late in autumn after he has completed his silent molt. In late summer, however, when the baby birds have grown into juveniles, then "old man mocker" takes up his business of mimicking the voices of the late nursery.

Until we knew his methods we would start at peculiar sounds in the garden and cry to one another, "There's a late brood of young ones!" and run to locate the tardy family.

From his perch on the chimney the mocker laughs at us, while he squeals, like his own little son of a month old, or coaxes, like a whole nestful of baby linnets.

No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the "black abyss" as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.

A neighbor of ours has a graphophone which is used on the lawn for the entertainment of summer guests. Think you that big brass trumpet-throat emits its uncanny sounds for human ears alone? Behind it, or above it, or in front of it, listening and taking notes, is the mocker. Suddenly, next day or next week, we hear, perhaps at midnight, a concert up in the trees--song-sparrows, and linnets, and blackbirds, and young chickens, and shrikes, and pewees, and a host of other musicians, clear and unmistakable. Then as suddenly the whole is repeated through a graphophone, and we listen and laugh, for well we know that the only source of it all is our dear mocker. How he gets the graphophone ring we do not know any more than we know how he comes by all his powers of reproduction. Of practice he has a plenty, and his industry in this respect may be the key to his success.

The male differs so slightly from his mate that the two are indistinguishable save at song-time. They pair in early spring, and are faithfully united in all their duties. They nest mostly in bushes or low branches from four to twenty feet from the ground. The nests are large and often in plain sight. Like the robin and other thrushes, the mocker's first thought is for the foundation. This is made of large sticks and grasses, interlaced and crossed loosely. Upon these the nest proper is placed, of soft materials lined with horsehair or grasses.

With the mockers, as with other birds, there is not a fixed rule as to nesting materials. Outside of a few fundamental principles as to foundations, etc., they select the material at hand. Where cotton is to be obtained they use it, and strings in place of grass. Leaves in the foundation are bulky and little trouble to gather.

We have found a pair of mockers very sly and silent just at nesting-time. Or the female will be at the nest work, while her mate is singing at a distance as if to distract us from the scene of action. However, in our grounds, where we have taught all birds extreme confidence, the good work progresses in plain sight. One writer has declared that a pair of mockers will desert a nest if you so much as look at it. This is true only where they are very wild and unaccustomed to human friends.

When once the young are hatched the fun begins. During the day the male ceases to sing, and devotes himself to giving exact information as to where the nest may be found. Of course this information is unintentional. He flies at us if we step out in sight, screaming with all his might. The nearer we approach the nest the louder and nearer he cries, until he actually has an attack of hysterics and turns somersaults in the air or quivers in the foliage. If it be possible to reach you from behind, he dives at your shoulder and nips at your hair. Always from behind, never facing you. His quiet mate flits through the boughs as if she understands her husband's exaggerated solicitude, and half smiles to see his performances.

In a day or two the young birds are able to speak for themselves, and from this on until the next brood of their parents is hatched, the youngsters keep up a coaxing squeal. Getting out of the nest in about two weeks, they fly awkwardly about, easy prey to cats and other thieves. From a nest of four or five eggs a pair of mockers do well if they raise two or even one. Night birds find them easy to steal, for they sleep on the ground or under a bush at first, being several days in learning to fly; and a much longer time in learning to eat by themselves. This year three sets of young mockers were raised on raspberries. They were brought to the patch as soon as they left the nest, where they remained on the ground along the drooping canes. The old birds kept with them, putting in all their time at teaching the awkward things the art of helping themselves. The parent bird would hop up a foot or two, seize a tip end of a twig on which was the usual group of berries, and bring it down to the ground, holding it there and bidding the young ones "take a bite." Not a bite would they take, squealing with mouth wide open and waiting for the old bird to pick the berry and place it in the capacious throat, the yellow margins of the base of the beak shining in the sun like melted butter. And butter these birds like, as well as the robins, for they come to the garden table and eat it with the bread and doughnuts and pie like hungry tramps.

Unlike the ashy white of the parent breast, the juveniles have a dotted vest very pretty to look at, which disappears at the first molt.

The natural food of the mocking-bird is fruit and meat. They catch an insect on the wing with almost the cunning of a flycatcher, and listen on the ground like a robin, for the muffled tread of a bug under a log or in the sward. They are not the tyrants they are sometimes accredited with being. The mocker does not fight a pitched battle with other birds as often as opportunity offers. Like many another voluble being, his bark is worse than his bite. Not his weapon, but his word, is law. So fraternal are the mockers, as we see them, that the close coming of them near the house in spring insures us the company of many other birds.

It is hard to outwit the mockers. They love fruit of any sort as well as they love insects. They dote on scarecrows, those "guardian angels" of domestic birds, and have been seen to kiss their cheeks or pick out their eyes.

We caused one of these terrors to stand in the Christmas persimmon-tree in the garden, thinking that, for fright of him, the mockers would stand aloof. It rained, and the first bird that came along snuggled under his chin with the hat-brim for an umbrella. That was a linnet. Along came a mocker and took refuge under the other ear of the angel. We tied paper bags around the fruit, but the mockers bit holes in the bags and took the persimmons. We pinned a sheet over the whole treetop, but peep-holes were sufficient. In went the mockers like mice and held carousals under cover.

Tamed when young, and given the freedom of the whole house, a mocking-bird feels fairly at home and is good company, especially if there be an invalid in the family. The bigger the house the more fun, for the limits of the cage in which birds are usually confined form the greatest objection to keeping them in captivity. Few cages admit of sufficient room for the stretch of wing in flight, or even for a respectable hop.

We know of no bird save a parrot which chooses to be caressed. Birds are not guinea-pigs, to be scratched into good terms. It spoils the plumage and disagrees with the temper. A mocker on the ground never trails his coat-skirt. He lifts his tail gracefully, as if he knows that contact with the grass will disarrange his feathers.

In "Evangeline," Longfellow immortalized the mocking-bird thus:

"Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the waters, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. Plaintive at first were the tones, and sad; then soaring to madness, Till having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the treetops Shakes down a rattling of rain in a crystal shower on the branches."